Free Ultra High-Speed Internet to Public Housing

San Francisco : The Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to preserving a record of the Internet and to increasing access to the Internet, today began offering free Internet service to public housing projects at speeds far greater than any other city resident can receive.

Valencia Gardens Housing, with 240 units, is the first area to be connected in a pilot project that expects to wire more than 2,500 units in the city in the next eight months, according to Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle.

What makes the project unique is that the apartments will be connected to the Internet, and to the educational resources at the Internet Archive, at 100 megabits per second (Mbits/second). That speed contrasts sharply with the normal Internet service offered by telephone companies, which is usually less than 6 Mbits/second.

The residents can instantly view DVD-quality videos of the thousands of lectures and other educational information from the Internet Archive’s collections, as well as traditional Internet access.

The Internet Archive is able to achieve this high speed by connecting the San Francisco municipal fiber optic network, which runs through the public housing developments, to an Archive switching center, which connects to the Internet.

“We are pleased to be the first non-profit organization to bring public housing online,” Kahle said.

He added: “We are excited to see much faster access to the Internet as a way to experiment with advanced applications, and are pleased that the underserved get first access to advanced technology.”